Rest in Peace Skip

Earlier this week, via the Leigh Creek Guzzlers Association grapevine, I received the sad news that Nigel Baker passed away last weekend.

To paraphrase the words of the sea shanty, ‘Tom Bowling’:

Faithful below Nigel did his duty,

and now he’s gone al-oo-oft,

and now he’s gone aloft. 

On reflection, I have a lot to thank you for Nigel, so here are some rememberences through a long lens back to the halcyon days of my teens....

Nigel Baker was Group Scout Leader of the 3rd Chalkwell Bay Sea Scout Group. When I joined in 1971 as a tender eleven year-old, Nigel and the other members of the ‘Ward Room’ were austere figures of authority, with a smartness and discipline that I had never before encountered. 

Together, they exposed me to messing about in boats, camping, hiking, a love of the outdoors, cooking, self-reliance and some deep friendships that have stood the long test of time. 

The Sea Scout Group had two 30 foot old wooden motor boats - a green one and a blue one - I don’t recall them having names. ‘Green’ was a complete wreck and gently rotted on her mooring. One of my early memories of Nigel was seeing him gleefully steering ‘Blue’ out to sea, brim full of smiling Sea Scouts, having left me behind mortified on the wharf. That was the last time I ever saw ‘Blue’ underway. Many hours were spent tinkering with her engine and plugging leaks in her hull, but I’d missed my chance of a ride. 

Another memory was of Nigel arriving at ‘The Den’ with an old heavy clinker-built PLA tender, subsequently Christened ‘Boy Bob’. She had a wooden roller on top of her transom, reputedly for pulling bodies out of the river. I had so many happy times sculling Boy Bob across Leigh Creek over the years. 

I have now become familiar with character profiling: red, yellow, green, blue, innovator, teamworker, peacemaker, completer-finisher etc. I realise now that Nigel was a complex man. I would love to see his ‘Myers Briggs’ mappings...

Nigel was at the centre, yet on the outside; a leader, yet not one of the team; fiercely practical, yet also often unrealistic; hard yet gentle. 

He had a wide range of interests including cricket and football (which he played until well beyond his sell-by date), local Liberal politics and participation on all sorts of Scouting and other committees. 

I believe that Nigel worked for the Port of London Authority, and then for Thames Water. He had some sort of chemistry background, and I recall going water sampling with him one day in Benfleet Creek. Goodness knows what the chemical and biological composition of Thames Estuary water was like in those days, but it never seemed to do us any harm. 

Nigel would often be seen undertaking complicated carpentry jobs on the old wooden ex-navy Sea Scout boats. I remember him rigging up old piping and water boilers to steam new ribs and planks, allowing them to be bent into the requisite curved shapes. 

Through his work, Nigel always managed to procure mechanical objects of interest: Land Rovers with flashing lights, fast Dorys with huge outboard motors, blocks and tackles, generators etc., etc.

I didn’t see Nigel all that often after I moved away from Leigh. However, whilst attending oceanographic conferences and trade shows in the early part of my working life, I’d occasionally get a tap on the shoulder: “ah Stephens, fancy meeting you here”.

I understand that Nigel suffered from dementia in his later years. Thankfully I never saw him like that, and will always remember him as his younger self. 

Thank you Nigel, and God bless you.  May you rest in peace. 

We’ll drink a toast to you and to the health of Davy Jones’ Locker!